


Beyond the Arena

by Evil_Little_Dog



Series: Ringmaster [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Community: hc_bingo, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 20:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/626013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evil_Little_Dog/pseuds/Evil_Little_Dog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary:  Ed’s been unconscious for a few days after his first fight in the arena.<br/>Disclaimer:  I own absolutely nothing but maybe the alt. reality this story takes place in.  Maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond the Arena

**Author's Note:**

> My prompts for this fic were 'Family, Captivity, Blood Loss and Abuse'. Consider those as warnings, 'kay? 
> 
> Additionally, this fic was written as a gift for my friend, Aki-Chan.

“Ed!” 

He pried his eyes open, blinking blearily up at something yellow in front of him. A blue blur resolved itself into Winry’s eyes, peering at him in worry. “‘m alive,” he coughed, then bit back a groan. Maybe he wasn’t. No, he ached too damned much to be dead. 

“I know,” Winry said, “but you’ve been unconscious,” her voice trailed off and she sat back. 

His brain seemed as fuzzy as his sight, but Edward forced it to work, trying to remember what had happened. There’d been the fight against Father, and the old man died, and – oh. He sat up too fast, his head pounding and his gut aching, and Winry caught hold of his shoulder, trying to push him back down. 

“Don’t do that!” she scolded, “you lost a lot of blood.” Her head tilted toward the saline drip that hung over his bed, a tube running down into his flesh arm. Winry swallowed and pushed on his shoulder again. “Lie down, Ed.” 

He tried to stay upright just to spite her, but gravity seemed to be pulling him down. With a groan, he collapsed against the bed. “How long?” 

“A few days, since your fight.” Winry couldn’t look at him, and Edward knew without a doubt she’d been watching, forced to watch, maybe, while his opponent nearly gutted him. Yeah, he remembered that much now, the sight of his blood spilling out of his hands and onto the arena floor. The shouts from the stands. He remembered inhaling the stink of his own insides and wondering if he was going to make it out of the arena alive. 

Obviously, this was his answer. 

Ed shoved that thought aside. He was still alive, that was what mattered. “Al?” 

“He’s okay,” Winry said, soothing. “I’ve been taking care of him.” Unspoken was the fact that it had been when she’d leave his side. Edward remembered waking up out of fever dreams and finding her next to him, her hands cool as she replaced damp cloths on his forehead back when he was recovering from automail surgery. “He’s worried, too. I’ll tell him you’re awake. Maybe he’ll be able to come see you.” 

Contingent on whether their master thought it was worth his while. Edward wondered how Sorgai had taken his loss in the arena. Well, he was still alive, so the man had decided he wasn’t expendable, at least, not yet. And Winry was allowed to be in his room, and she said Alphonse was all right, so. He tamped down the worry that threatened to bubble up in his chest about not seeing his brother and focused on Winry. Dark circles ringed her eyes and her cheeks were gaunt, telling him she’d been running herself ragged, taking care of them both. Edward frowned at her loose hair – usually, when she was taking care of someone, she had it up in a ponytail, or bound back in a bandana. Even in this new life of theirs, some things were still constants. He sighed, closing his eyes. “Tired,” he muttered, then, “hungry.” 

“You can’t eat yet. Or drink,” Winry told him, “you’ve got a catheter in - ”

Edward growled deep in his throat. Now that she mentioned it, he could feel the damned thing inside his penis. Which meant someone had to install it, and he didn’t really want to know if she’d been the one to do it, or – no, not thinking about it. 

“ – and you know until you’re healed up enough, you can’t have it removed.” 

He knew the spiel. After all, he’d heard it before, even in that particular tone from Winry Rockbell, or from her grandmother, even when he yelled at them to take the stupid tube out of his dick, he could piss on his own. They’d always cackled and reminded him to not wriggle around so much, because glass tubes inside of penises could _break_ and – Edward shuddered, desperate to think of anything but that. 

Opening his eyes again, he met Winry’s. She glared at him, her usual expression when she was trying to hide how worried she was. Edward started to roll his eyes, but his vision was finally clearing up from whatever drugs they’d shoved into him and waking up from that blood-loss related coma. “Winry?” 

“What, Ed?” she snapped back, more proof of her concern, as if he needed it. Her hair swung forward and she automatically swept it back behind her ear, revealing a darkened patch of skin, purple and green, haloed with dull yellow. 

He knew better than to sit up so fast but did it anyway, the room spinning around him for a few seconds as he used his automail hand to brush her hair back, out of the way. His other arm stung from how the needle pulled when he caught hold of her chin with his flesh hand. “Who did this?” Edward rumbled, turning her face away from him. His fingers should’ve trembled when they brushed over the bruise; instead, they clenched into a fist. 

“It doesn’t matter, Ed.” Winry caught his hand, his metal hand, and pulled it away from her face. When he opened his mouth to protest, she jerked her chin free, fixing him with a stare dark enough to quail him, even without a wrench anywhere in sight. “It. Doesn’t. Matter. Now, lie down, and stop jerking your arm around. You could pull your needle free.” 

His stomach twitched at the thought of having to endure another needle poking into his arm, but Edward wasn’t going to just let it go, no matter Winry glared. “Tell me.” 

“Why? So you can go beat someone up?” Winry laughed, a soft, bitter sound that cut him straight to the heart. “It really doesn’t matter, Ed.” She pushed at his shoulder again, half-heartedly trying to get him to lie down. 

“It does,” he insisted softly. 

The muscles in her jaw flexed. “Ed, I mean it.” 

“So do I.” Edward touched her cheek again, wishing he could feel with his right hand. Wishing his hand was warm and flesh, so he could offer Winry some sort of comfort with it. “I know I can’t do anything about it right now, Winry, but.” He let out a sigh through his teeth. “Things are going to change.” Meeting her eyes, he repeated, “They will change. And you,” he brushed his thumb over her bruised cheekbone, “you don’t deserve any of this.” 

“Neither do you,” she protested. 

Edward gave her a crooked half-smile. “Yeah, but I’m used to it. I get into fights and trash my automail all the time. And then you yell at me, and scare Al, and we bitch at each other until the old hag drags us apart.”

Winry didn’t answer his smile. “That’s all changed, Ed.” 

“Yeah.” He pushed her hair farther back, over her shoulder. Leaning closer, he whispered in her ear, “But we’ll figure a way to get it back. We’re going to get out of this, all of us, together. You, me, Al, Granny; everyone.”

After swallowing loud enough he could hear it, Winry asked, “You mean that, Ed?” 

“Same way you meant I had to save everyone when it was just Father we had to worry about.” Edward grinned as her face lit up in remembrance. “I’ll make all of this a bad memory if you can just hold on a little while longer, okay?” 

Winry sniffed, rubbing her eye with the heel of her hand. “I’m supposed to be comforting you,” she mumbled. 

“I don’t need any comforting.” Edward grinned at her sour look, twirling a few strands of her hair around the tip of his finger. 

“You’re going to get hair in your finger joint.”

Edward said, “I’m being careful,” but let her hair slip off the metal digit. “I meant what I said, Winry.” 

“I know.” She laid her hand against his chest, right above the thump of his heart. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t know if I can take you getting this hurt again.” 

“I’ll do my best.” It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, Edward knew, but he couldn’t make the same promises he had before. There were things she needed to hear, things he wanted to tell her, but now wasn’t the time, nor the place. Not with the two of them – not with all of them – in captivity, made into puppets to dance at the whim of their masters. “Go check on Al. Tell him I’m awake, and I’ll see him soon.” But he couldn’t help but lean his cheek against hers, breathing her familiar scent as deep as his aching ribs and body would let him. 

He’d have to heal fast, he knew. Sorgai wouldn’t wait forever, and his trainer would be pushing to get him back into the ring. Edward had other plans, though – to get strong and break the shackles holding them down now. 

Letting Winry pull away, Edward watched as she headed toward the door. She hesitated in the opening, turning to give him a smile. Edward answered it with his best cocky grin, letting it fade only after the door closed behind her. Looking down at the needle in his arm, Edward warned it, “You’re not going to be there long. I’ve got too much to do to lie around in this bed forever.” People were waiting for him, and he had a promise to live up to. 

And the Fullmetal Alchemist didn’t break his promises.


End file.
